Sacrosanct Deities
by marapozsa
Summary: Vaan has never been loved. Balthier is the one to change it.


**Sacrosanct Deities**

a c a n t **h a** – c h _a n_

**Authoress' Note & Disclaimer:** This is a one-sentence self-challenge that I decided to do because I have always enjoyed reading them - I thought, why not try my hand at one? Of course, being a crazy, short, underweight lunatic of a writer, I went a bit overboard and decided to aim for 100 sentence topics instead of 50, but then I took out the 50 worst. Despite that attempt at editing, some of them might repeat because my creativity-juice can only go so far before I pass out due to lack of brainpower. The featured pairing, which I happen to love, is Balthier & Vaan. Enjoy.

(Oh, yes, and by the way, the FF XII copyrights don't belong to me, but having the game has to count for something.)

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001 - air

Each night they spend together, neither of them forgets anything except how to breathe, but it takes more than suffocation to stop a sky pirate and his thieving lover.

002 - victory

Is it his imagination, Balthier muses, or is that truly a flicker of jealousy in the Queen's eyes whenever she glances over their way and sees Vaan tucked away into the curve of another man's arms?

003 - smoke

The night the palace went up in, with Larsa and Ashe inside, Balthier took comfort in the knowledge that he had at least managed to save one of the few people he loved.

004 - ocean

Balthier, being a true and proper sky pirate, does not, in fact know how to swim - what comforts him, however, is that Vaan does not know how to swim either.

005 - wings

"Penelo was the one who wanted to call her _Revenant Wings_," Vaan relates to Balthier, who only hopes she'll live up to her name, "but I was the one who wanted to name her after you."

006 - clarevoyancy

The only vision Balthier had seen when he'd looked at the Dawn Shard in the Stilshrine was one of his father, so he chose to look away; the only one who knew why was the only one who would never tell (Fran was too well-guarded, at any rate), so Vaan decided to find out for himself.

007 - smile

Vaan's smile is sunny and optimistic, while Balthier's is more of a smirk, but the two have something in common: they both lie.

008 - fire

Balthier's amber eyes are more the color smouldering ashes than true fire, but Vaan always finds it his duty to tell the older man otherwise.

009 - fruit

The sky pirate is asked what fruit he favors, but his response ("I delight in sampling only the most _sinful_ of fruit, my darling.") is not what Ashe expects (she can name one such example of 'sinful fruit,' but decides not to remark lest Balthier beat her in the jest of words).

010 - blade

Vaan's hollow expression become one of even more evident loss as he realized that he had never lived in a world where Balthier did not exist (born three years earlier) but his world seemed to have cut him off: whether by blade blunt or sharp, the desert thief doesn't enjoy an existence without the sky pirate.

011 - sacred

Many things about Balthier are things Vaan finds are worth reveling at, but the only thing Vaan chooses to worship is the air he breathes.

012 - special

So, too, does Balthier think that something about Vaan is special enough to be worthy of recognition, and he never fails to mention it in bed.

013 - numbers

The number of times they've done something are not worth remembering - what is, however, is that they did it all together.

014 - hero

"I'm no hero," exclaims Ashe, to which Balthier duly responds (at the expense of his young partner), "I believe the right term, princess, is heroine."

015 - simplicity

Vaan does only what he can, but Balthier is satisfied although he does even less.

016 - noise

The cacophony heightens in the next bedroom, and Penelo opens dark-rimmed eyes in order to throw her slipper at the wall - even Larsa doesn't make that much noise in bed, and she should know very well.

017 - eyes

Balthier kisses Vaan in public and then tells him that it's only for the attention - Vaan, on the other hand, thinks he needs to read between the lines a little more.

018 - country

Balthier claims he has no country, no allegiance, and then Vaan asks him, utterly confused, "But...don't I count?"

019 - strawberries

Vaan tells him that he doesn't like strawberries because they taste sour - Balthier doesn't comment, only offers another of the succulent fruits to him ('an extremely sinful fruit,' he calls it - his own little joke); he takes it anyway, and makes sure Balthier is gone before savoring the heady flavor.

020 - axiom

The simple truth both of them know is that their love is a sin, a forbidden fruit of Eden that they are all too willing to partake of.

021 - secret

Fran seems to take pleasure in teasing Balthier about his dirty little secret, albeit discreetly, but it seems Balthier gets the most amusement out of it, as he delights in relating tales of his bedroom ventures to her - whether or not she wants to listen, and in the most annoying tone she has ever heard out of the man.

022 - bravery

Balthier always lies when he says the only time he does not strive for freedom (or, in other words, cowardly retreat) is when he is protecting Vaan, but Vaan knows that he doesn't lie when he says, "I'm only brave because you want me to be."

023 - glass

When glass is broken, it flies in all directions; so too, does Vaan break apart and fall everywhere when Balthier's lips meet his.

024 - elegance

Balthier has a gift for eloquence, Vaan for elation, but neither of them have the icy elegance of a viera, something that Vaan envies Fran sorely for; Balthier, on the other hand, prefers Vaan the way he is.

025 - silhouette

The only thing you see through the window are two entwined bodies before the candle goes out.

026 - theater

Vaan finds the theater a waste of time, but it's only Balthier's performance that keeps him from exiting stage right.

027 - repose

Whether in his arms or in bed, Balthier can't help but admire how beautiful Vaan looks when he is asleep.

028 - residue

The thief took to wearing more clothing once he'd looked in the mirror the following morning; he had gaped unnaturally (like a danbania, you could say), at the number of marks Balthier's mere touch seemed to have left on his skin.

029 - grudge

Vaan has declared time and time again that he won't forgive Balthier (whether it be for this or that), but each time, Balthier discovers it's a lie when he crawls into bed that night and finds Vaan already there.

030 - contour

They know every crevace of each other's bodies, but the outline of one another's minds is sadly incomplete in comparison.

031 - scrapbook

Penelo keeps a scrapbook of drawings of her times with Larsa after he leaves for Archadia; what surprises Balthier and Vaan is that she leaves it behind when he elopes with her - "making memories" has always been her hobby, but never had Balthier been so tempted to try it.

032 - caprice

Balthier is far too fickle for just second-best (and he's not afraid to say so either), so Vaan has somehow gotten the notion that he's just not good enough for him.

033 - sacred

Balthier scorns every god Vaan has ever held sacred, while Vaan revers anything Balthier tells him to.

034 - blood

Vaan delights in reminding Balthier that he has the blood of a noble and treating him so, but sand is thicker than blood by a long shot.

035 - prophet

Ashe envies the one who predicted the more-than-friendship between Vaan and Balthier, but doesn't realize that it is not the prophet who shapes history - that is the profession of men like Basch and women like her.

036 - nightmare

The one night Vaan has a bad dream, Balthier is already there in the nightmare to comfort him, and he wakes to that same face before the dream can distort again.

037 - mirage

He dies in the desert, following an illusion of made up of copper hair and a nobleman's smirk.

038 - abyss

Distance divides them the same way the sea does kingdoms, but only in their heads.

039 - crusade

To him, Vaan was just another conquest in a lifelong crusade.

040 - saints

Martyrs aren't the only ones that die for what they believe in; Penelo knows that lovers act the same way.

041 - mirrors

"Distorted glass never tells you what you want to know," he says, and his lover replies, "Neither do I."

042 - compass

The only direction Balthier's compass points is to his heart; Vaan's heart, on the other hand, points to nowhere.

043 - threshold

He has a chance to stop, to walk away and not look back, but what so emblazons his image into Vaan's soul is that for once he doesn't choose the coward's way out.

044 - salvation

Balthier bends over the rotting corpse, prodding the carcass of human flesh with one end of his Six-Fluted Pole; he shows Vaan (who promptly suppresses an urge to vomit) and tells the younger boy proudly (in an almost sadistic manner, but Vaan didn't know the sky pirate could be that brutal), "I'm the only one standing between _you_ and the end of _you_. Understand?"

045 - panacea

"Sex is the cure to all sickness"; "...Liar."

046 - verisimilitude

If it weren't too extreme to believe that they actually had something to come home to at the end of the day, Vaan's sure they would - their only nonexistent lie.

047 - prose

Vaan finds poetry the most disgusting thing he has ever come across; it is frilly, romantic, conservative and artistic - in short, everything he is not.

048 - frequency

Vaan just doesn't see things the way Balthier does, but that's no cause of alarm, that he should be so inflexible - Balthier, at least, is willing to overlook that flaw.

049 - silver

The only feeling better than that of when he'd found the necklace was the chilling sensation Balthier's touch gave him as the man slipped it around his neck, glittering silver in the moonlight.

050 - failure

Balthier does not enjoy realizing how far he has fallen - what he could have had and how he threw it all away for a desert child's momentary affection.


End file.
